


The Swan

by Sara_Nublas



Series: The Swan series [1]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Gen, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-11
Updated: 2011-05-14
Packaged: 2017-10-17 23:02:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 19,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/182249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sara_Nublas/pseuds/Sara_Nublas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Emily gets involved in an old case in the attempt to help a friend, things soon take a dangerous turn and a terrible truth is uncovered. I'm terrible at summaries... please give it a try :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. On dinners and plans

It was a rare night of leisure for the BAU team. They had been through a very intense month spent barely hitting their own beds, rushing case after case, hunting and running, working relentlessly. It was like if someone had opened the cages and let the worst of humanity pour out of it.  
The occasion that brought them in that restaurant was the publishing of Rossi's last book. It wasn't actually a big deal for the author himself, but when he shared the news with Hotch they both agreed it would have been a good idea to have the team gathered under merry circumstances for once.  


Now the feeling everybody silently shared around that table was a mixture of contrasting emotions. There was the happiness of sharing a joyful moment and taking a break from unsubs, pictures of mutilated bodies and mourning families, but also a bit of uneasiness. Over the past months they had basically lived together in a forced coexistence, barely having some moments of privacy to spend on their own or with their families. It was tough sometimes; despite the not-profiling-your-team-members rule, every longer silence, every sigh was noticed and analyzed by the others. The intention behind that was to take care of each other but it ended up being a bit oppressing.  
Prentiss in particular was having a hard time with that; few weeks before they investigated a series of rapes in a small town, one of the victims found out to be pregnant and decided for an interruption. Emily took her job further than required and gave her support knowing well the feeling of handling alone such an overwhelming experience. Her emotional involvement in the case had naturally arisen concern among her colleagues, especially Derek who couldn't stop keeping an eye on her. The issue for Emily wasn't just revealing her experience, but even more her sacrosanct necessity to keep some details of her life to herself without having to share each feeling, emotion or thought.  
They chose an Italian restaurant as a tribute to the guest of honor; the atmosphere was lively but not too loud, cozy but not sleepy, the service was impeccable and the notes of a piano provided a pleasant and discrete soundtrack.  


"So what are your plans for the weekend guys?" Penelope asked after they sat at their table while sipping some soda.  
"I am far behind with some work on my properties.. I think I'll go for some smashing walls and crushing doors work out" replied Morgan in a grin of satisfaction.  
"Chess tournament and Star Trek Final Fight" followed Reid "I have been out of the scene for a while now…"  
"Star Trek Final Fight?" Rossi addressed the young genius "Is that a new episode of the sequel?"  
"No it's a quiz relative to Star Trek, it goes on until all the participants but one are eliminated. It's really exciting actually; it can go on for days, weeks even. Every night the group meets up and heads roll" he answered dancing his hand in excitement, thumb and middle finger touching together.  
Rossi raised an eyebrow making an effort to find the exciting part in Reid's plans, but unsuccessfully.  
"Intoxicating.." Garcia commented "Well, I am definitely thrilled by your plans my friends.. Reid The-Galactic-Highlander and Derek The-Merciless-Renovator. Someone else wants to contribute?"  
The general giggling and the arrival of the food covered both profilers' objections.  
 _As a start, mixed antipasti composed of cheese and honey, bruschette and grilled vegetables.  
_  
"I've been promising Jack to take him to the funfair for ages now, so I'll better hurry up before he turns 18 and goes to college" the rest of the team smiled to Hotch's semi-ironic joke, knowing how hard it was to be a single parent and a dedicated profiler.  
 _The first course: a trio of mushroom risotto; ravioli filled with ricotta and spinach; homemade pasta with zucchini, sundried tomatoes and lemon zest.  
_  
"I'll skip the book signing and go out with my boat. Me and my dog, away from profiling for a couple of days, hopefully" Rossi added with a longing smile, envisioning already himself in the calmness of nature.  
 _The second course: - left to the bravest who still had some room left- a giant Florentine style stake served with a side of grilled eggplants, peppers and zucchini.  
_  
 _All the courses naturally bedewed by the generous company of the finest red wine.  
_  
"I will spend a weekend of sinful pleasure with Kevin" said Garcia with a malicious grin while stabbing a piece of meat with her fork, then pointing it to Derek "don't be jealous mon cher, during the week days I will be yours again"  
"Oh, you'd better be baby girl!" he played along with her "before I get too hungry" added stealing the mouth of meat from her fork.  
All the team couldn't help laughing at their naughty flirting.  
 _And as a grand-finale, the dessert: chocolate & pears cake.  
_  
"God, I love chocolate" Emily sighed with pleasure while dipping her spoon in the hard chocolate cover and then finding the softness of the chocolate and pears filling, hoping to avoid her turn in disclosing her plans for the weekend.  
"What about you?" asked Garcia, obviously not enough distracted by that chocolate gorgeousness.  
"Well not much relaxing, I promised months ago to be at this fund raising my mother is organizing and I am gonna be stuck there" she lied. Then taking a spoon of that perfect contrast between bitterness and sweetness, hard and soft melting in her mouth, she smiled mischievously "at least there will be free champagne".  
She had this disturbing feeling of being on a stage: 'smile, look pretty, straight your pose, suck your stomach in'. Truth was she didn't want to admit with her colleagues that beside her job, in her life there wasn't much more going on, she was sailing toward her forties, no boyfriend and no dates in schedule, no actual friends out of the BAU, no hobbies besides some reading and going to the theater sometimes. When did her life become so boring?  
 _To conclude a round of limoncello was on the house, to reward the endurance shown by the company in getting to the end of the dinner.  
_  
Despite the tiredness and uneasiness of the beginning they spent a lovely evening, laughing and talking about all the possible topics from movies and books, to holiday destinations and embarrassing dates, and it was frankly amazing to realize that there was so much they could share besides their job. Once more proving to be a family and not just a team.  


During the whole evening though Rossi had noticed something was off with Prentiss, she was shifting from her usual sharp sense of humor mocking Reid and playfully flirting with Morgan to moments of withdrawn silence.  
"Did you enjoy the dinner?" He asked her when they got up from their seats.  
"Yes, it was delicious! Remind me to get the card of this place before we leave" she answered excited with a big smile.  
He then figured she was just tired and didn't bother about that anymore. Actually there was something that had been catching her attention since they got there, and despite her efforts in joining the company she couldn't help repeatedly staring at it.  
At the end of the night they were all happily full and tired and considering the dose of alcohol they drunk and the chronic sleep deprivation accumulated overtime, they wisely decided not to drive. Rossi and Hotch took one cab, Morgan, Garcia and Reid another, Emily was at walking distance from her place so she decided to head back home on foot. As soon as they left the restaurant Emily realized she left her gloves inside and ran back to retrieve them.  


"It was a lovely dinner, thanks a lot!" she smiled at the waiters while leaving, gloves in her hands this time.  
She was about to cross the door when a husky raucous voice stopped her "He won't bite you if you try him"  
"Excuse me?" she asked back doubting whether the comment was directed to her.  
A man in his sixties, wearing a suit and a sneak smile approached her, his white teeth standing out against his dark complexion, a lively light in his eyes sided by wrinkles. She couldn't say why, but she felt instinctively attracted to him.  
He got closer and pointed with his finger a dim corner behind him.  
"I noticed you were looking at him many times tonight, you seemed attracted and intimidated at the same time; so I wanted to tell you that you shouldn't be scared, he's not going to hurt you if you get closer" his smile magnetic and sincere.  
Emily at first looked at him with perplexity then chuckled cheerfully when she understood who, or better what, he was.


	2. On secrets and trust

The black grand piano, the object that had kept Emily distracted from the conversation all night, was now resting silent in a dark spot. She immediately thought with regret that such an amazing creation wasn't meant to be left in a corner tip-toeing pleasant notes and discrete songs at dinner time, it should be dominating the centre of a stage, issuing powerful melodies and conquering the auditorium, eyes and minds totally focused on it.  
"My name is Eddie" said the man offering her his hand, "I play that beauty every night"  
Emily shook his hand introducing herself; a note of sadness surfaced in her eyes, for some uncanny reason that man inspired her trust "When I was a kid my father used to teach me. Every afternoon we had our sacred piano lesson. And once a week or when we had guests I would play for them." For a moment she recalled the light of the studio, the soft sound of the notes diffusing in the house, the reassuring smile of her father and his expert fingers dancing on the keys. Suddenly the tone was bitter and her smile fading "then he left, I went on playing for a while, but it wasn't the same. I lost that sense of magic."  
"When was the last time you played?" he asked her  
"Ah, ages ago" she replied unable to take her eyes off the piano and noticing her fingers were drumming inside her pockets, like pleading for something.  
"I don't think anybody will tell you anything if you want to play a little" he whispered in encouragement.  
Emily looked at him uncertain and then at the piano again, like a child who is offered a piece of cake in a bakery but doesn't know if she's supposed to accept it.  
"Can I?" she asked, her eyes wider, suddenly a feeling of excitement.  
The man stepped back to give her full access to the corner and hinted to the owner of the restaurant who gave him back a smile of approval.  
Emily walked hesitant and sat down at the piano with silent and slow movements. She lifted her hands and touched lightly the keys not producing any note, just a silent dialogue between her and the instrument; then she took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and started. Everything was perfect again, as if she had never stopped playing.

Coming back to the BAU on Monday seemed easier to all the team members. Despite the weekend had flown away they all had time to cool down a bit and recuperate a glimpse of normality in their life. Morgan had smashed his walls; Reid had obviously won the chess tournament and excelled in the Star Trek Final Fight; and Garcia was floating around the office with a fluffy dress and a self-explanatory dreaming smile. Hotch, though wearing his usual serious mask, seemed more relaxed and Rossi entered the bureau with brisk pace and an amused grin on his face.  
Emily arrived a bit later than usual, deep shadows under her eyes and a different light in her look.  
"Wow, that must have been a hell of a fund raising" Garcia commented stopping her in the aisle "How much champagne did you have?"  
Emily looked at her blankly for a minute, "Oh, the fund raising, yes. Ehm, good. It was decent actually… It.. just ended really late and I didn't get much sleep.. too bad the weekend is already over" she giggled nervously almost running away from the further series of questions Garcia was ready to unsheathe.  
The day was a big amount of paperwork and Emily made a huge effort to keep it together; she was clumsy, distracted and her hands were aching to the point of barely being able to lift a cup of coffee. Penelope, Morgan and Reid went on staring at her all day, devoured by curiosity.  
At the end Morgan couldn't keep his mouth shot anymore "Ok, so are you gonna tell us?"  
"What?" she asked displaying again that dull face.  
"Oh come on.. you have been absent minded all morning, with this air of mystery girl. What's going on with you?" the profiler didn't give up.  
She sighed deeply "Nothing special guys" I met a complete stranger, disclosed half of my life with him, which I have never done with anybody before, then went to his place and played the piano for hours in a row after almost twenty years of silence; which was amazing but literally draining. Oh right, did you know that playing the piano requires the use of muscles and joints I was even unaware to exist? "I went to the fund raising and stayed there till the end, which was really late and drank too much. That's it. I am sorry, not much of an excitement, I am not demolition woman or Spock or the queen of wild sex" She lied again. She spent the rest of the day with her nose dipped into reports and files and ran away from further questions as soon as she could. Useless to say, that night she was again at the restaurant waiting in a dark corner for the costumers to go away.  
The morning after at the bureau Morgan was waiting for her at her desk, with a cup of smoking coffee and another round of questions "I came by last night. I wanted to check on you" he started with nonchalance "but you were not at home"  
Emily gulped for air trying to find another excuse, but couldn't even start.  
"Listen Emily, if you want to keep to yourself some parts of your private life that's your right and nobody is going to intrude, but don't lie to us, ok? I checked, there was no fund raising. I got the message, I don't share every single detail of my life with you either, and I didn't want to be intruding. It was enough to say 'back off Derek' and now I will" his tone wasn't upset, but she knew he was hurt. He just wanted to be kind and show that he cared for her, and in change she had been mean and distrustful.  
Her flow of thoughts was interrupted by Hotch summoning them all in the conference room. An amber alert had been issued in Texas and after a brief presentation of the case they all headed to the jet.  
As soon as they landed Morgan and Prentiss were sent to talk to the family of the child; Jason, nine years old was taken from his room during the night, whereas his younger brother Steven hadn't been touched. When they got to the house they found the parents fighting wildly, blaming each other for the situation while a young rookie was trying to calm them down. It was Derek who finally silenced them making them reason; after the profilers introduced themselves, Steven came out of a corner and hugged Emily to the waist not letting her go, his eyes scared and full of tears, he hadn't said a word since his brother went missing. While Derek was talking to the family, Emily took the kid to the garden and started talking to him in a calm voice.  
"I'm scared " he said in the end "I never know what to do, Jason does. He is my best friend and I let him down and mom and dad now hate me"  
"Sweetheart, your mom and dad don't hate you, they are just very scared. And sometimes when people are scared do silly things, like shouting at each other" she explained wiping away the tears from his cheeks.  
Derek joined them in the garden and instinctively Steven crouched against Emily's chest, burying his face in her arms. The two profilers exchanged a look; then Emily softly caressing the boy's head started whispering at him in a sweet voice "Listen Steven I know you are scared, but we are here to help. This man here is my colleague Derek." She took a pause and went on "He is not just a colleague, he's also one of my best friends, like your brother is for you. I trust him with my life and I know that if I was in trouble he would be there for me, as much as I would be there for him whenever he needed me. Now what we need you to do is to be very brave and try to tell us everything you remember of last night, or anything strange that happened in the past days; maybe someone who got closer or followed you two or tried to talk. I promise we will do everything we can to bring Jason back home"  
Steven sniffed a bit and looked at Emily's face, the sun was exalting her ivory complexion against the ebony of her hair, her reassuring smile could make everybody feel safe even in the face of the worst tragedy. In that moment Morgan thought she looked like an angel. The little boy slowly turned at Derek and gave him a faint smile, than started talking "There was a funny man yesterday out of the supermarket…"  
They were able to find video recordings of the supermarket's parking lot and trace the man Steven described. Few hours later they were entering his house and rescuing a very scared but unharmed Jason and taking him back home. Before leaving Emily went to say goodbye to Steven "You see, today you've been your brother's hero and you helped him a lot. You have been really brave and saved his life."  
Steven hugged her and waved at Derek who was standing few steps behind. Then he handed her a folded piece of paper on which he had drawn something.  
Emily showed surprise on her face "Wow! For me? Thank you!"  
"For you and for Derek" the little boy answered with a smart smile, then he ran back to his parents and his brother.  
Emily looked at the drawing, frowned and chuckled before folding it and putting it into a pocket.  
"You've been really great with that kid before, when you convinced him to talk" Derek said on the way back to the SUV.  
"I just told the truth. I really trust you and I immensely appreciate your friendship" she smiled apologetically.

That had been a good day, on the way back sitting on the plane they were all sharing one of those rare moments in which they remembered with pride why they chose that job and that crazy kind of life..  
"Soo, Emily" Garcia started, while knitting what seemed to be a multicolored jumper "I heard someone gave you a present today"  
"Yep, a drawing. We've got a new Picasso growing up in Texas" she giggled.  
"And you want to show us the masterpiece?" the analyst went on teasing  
"I don't think so" Emily smiled tight.  
"Oh come on Prentiss, don't be shy!" Morgan intervened "Did he draw you so ugly?" he started giggling with Penelope, his sister in arms.  
Prentiss sighed, aware she couldn't do anything but surrendering "Fine" she said dryly, handing the sheet to Penelope, then directed to Morgan "but don't say I didn't warn you.."  
He shifted an interrogative look from Emily to Penelope who had unfolded the paper and was staring at it, her mouth open and a hilarious expression that was promising no good was painted on her face.  
Rossi and Reid on the way back from the kitchenette with steaming cups of coffee in their hands intercepted the drawing before it got to Morgan and stared at it.  
Rossi furrowed and commented with an amused grin, Reid analyzed it in detail and then confused asked "Is that Prentiss and Morgan?"  
"Me?" Morgan more and more curious "What does it have to do with me? Come on, kid. Give me that drawing"  
"Don't tell I didn't warn you Morgan" Prentiss commented unruffled from her seat, aware that this would have marked the beginning of endless teasing from Garcia and Reid.  
Morgan stared speechless at the drawing portraying him and Emily, their names written on their vests under the word FBI. They were hand in hand and surrounded by a big heart. And to be sure that the message got loud and clear a giant DEREK AND EMILY FOREVER was popping out on the top of everything.  
"So" Reid coughed lightly "are we invited to the marriage?" He and Penelope started laughing shamelessly and went on for great part of the flight.  
Derek sat down quiet, muted by the drawing. He couldn't stop thinking at Emily's face under the sunlight, the way she smiled at that child, the transparent way she said she trusted him blindly.  
Few seats back Emily was silent too, but with other thoughts in her mind; her fingers unwittingly drumming on the empty seat at her side.


	3. On new obsessions and silenced desires

She realized that the surrounding space was suddenly more crowded than she could remember. People were clapping. Eddie was smiling smugly.  
"I told you he wasn't going to bite you" he chuckled later while they were walking out of the restaurant.  
Emily gave him a death glare. He had told her that the restaurant was closing and nobody would enter, but apparently while she was playing people passing by heard the music and went in. Suddenly she realized she had a public.  
"What if someone I know entered and recognized me.." she protested  
"And would it be so shameful to share your gift with the world?" he laughed back confused  
"Well, there's not much to share. I strum unskillfully a musical instrument on an occasional basis. And it's not like if this is going to last" she said shrugging.  
"Oh. That is sad… And unlikely. You are not going to stop. You know that" he glanced maliciously "and for the record unskillful is not the word I would use to define your playing"  
She couldn't help surrendering with a smile; she knew he was right, she had already come back to the restaurant several times by now and her fingers, drummed in the pockets of her coat, were looking forward to playing again.  
It was exciting to spend her free time doing something she actually liked, but the best part was the fact that it was secret. Ok, it was childish, and at some point she would have shared that with someone, but for now she wanted to treasure every single moment with her new shiny little obsession, all on her own.  
Eddie's prediction turned out to be correct; during the following months Emily became a habitué at the restaurant, she would come late and wait for the crowd to go away. He was mocking her perpetually for her secrecy policy.  
They became good friends and one day after many invitations she started coming around at his place to practice more and to move to more challenging routines. She used to come by on Sunday afternoons when she was not working on a case, with a box of biscuits and a childish smile of anticipation.  
Eddie lived in a cozy, bright apartment not far from the restaurant, there were plenty of shelves filled with books and musical scores and the smell of old paper filled the air, on the walls many pictures mainly portraying Eddie with his family, wife and two daughters. He never talked about them and Emily decided not to ask.  
One day she blurted out a question she had kept to herself for a while "Eddie, why are you helping me?"  
"Because you are a very talented woman even though you will never acknowledge it, because you do a honorable job and despite you dive into the darkest corners of humanity you still smile like an angel, because you are a pure soul and you remind me of my daughter" he didn't give her the time to ask further "So, I'd say it's high time to upgrade to something more interesting, I am sure you are tired of soppy restaurant melodies" he leaned toward her looking for approval.  
"Surprise me" she smiled taking the challenge.  
Eddie started searching for something among a pile of scores, until he found it. He brushed delicately the dust from the cover before handing it to her.  
Emily looked at the title and turned pale "Eddie, this is insane!" she protested.

The rhythm at the BAU had returned to be crazy again and the team was seriously starting to wonder where all those killers were coming from.  
Derek hadn't questioned Emily anymore about her private life for the fear of making her uncomfortable. He had thought more than once of how things would have been between them if they weren't working together, but his self control and the awareness of the fraternization rules hadn't let those thoughts go far. They were very good friends and they had a great chemistry and he was determined in not ruining things. It was amazing the way they could have witty flirtatious conversations one minute and the minute after disclose their dark side to each other. With her, and only her, he wasn't ashamed of his vulnerability.  
Emily appreciated Derek's discretion, she didn't want to uncover the last outpost of her private life, but she refused the idea of telling him lies again. Also keeping a safety distance allowed her to keep control on that feeling than so many times she had to fight back, not to jeopardize their friendship and not to make things awkward and complicated. This secret outpost not only had filled a hole in her life but also kept her emotional shield in place, protecting her from troubles.  
Derek didn't have a clue on what was going on in Emily's life out of the BAU, though he knew that this thing managed to give her a new vitality but also made her more fearless on the job, sometimes risking her own safety. Hotch too had manifested his disagreement with this kind of approach and warned her to be more cautious, but being the one who worked in closer contact with her, he could fully appreciate the alarming direction of her change; and he was frankly scared of it.  
The frail equilibrium of their relationship was deeply shaken in Alabama. They were chasing an unsub who targeted women in a relationship with African American men. He was smart and able to cover his tracks, he left no prints, no DNA, no physical proof connecting him to the homicides; still the team could trace his steps finding out that he abducted his victims always in the same nightclub, stunning the man and taking the woman, and thanks to the profile they identified him as a local man acting out of revenge and deeply rooted racist prejudice. Now the team, together with the local police and the SWAT, was outside the nightclub where the killer had been spotted, but they couldn't arrest him unless they caught him in action.  
Garcia was able to connect with the surveillance system in the nightclub and get a view of the suspect "Garcia, you are on speaker. What is the situation?" asked Hotch  
"Sir, I can confirm that the Unsub is inside. The problem is that there are no interracial couples around. Not one…"  
"Well I am not surprised" commented Rossi "People read the newspapers, they know of a serial killer targeting interracial couples, would you take the risk of going out in public?"  
"So we are stuck" commented the local detective "this is a small town, everybody knows me and my men. We enter he takes off"  
"Well, he doesn't know us" Rossi continued exchanging a glance with Hotch.  
The Unit chief evaluated the situation for a few seconds and spoke out his decision "Morgan, Prentiss; I don't want to push you if you don't feel comfortable with this but I don't see many other options"  
Emily was already taking her vest off and undoing her ponytail.  
Morgan nodded "No problem" even though it was a big problem for him, the guy was smart and the bar provided many escapes, moreover Prentiss switching to 'bullet-proof super cop' mode was a big source of concern for him.  
"Ok," Hotch instructed them "enter separately, make sure he sees you two flirting and then move out to the parking lot where he can ambush you, we'll be there ready to catch him. Be cautious."  
While the two profilers were approaching the nightclub Morgan warned his partner "Hei Prentiss, this time try not to play wonder woman, ok?"  
"You too, Rambo" she smiled back and parted from him.  
The club was crowded, the music loud, the air steamy and many people were dancing. It would have been fun if only they weren't working a case.  
Emily entered first and went to the bar to order a drink, she had a visual on the unsub sitting not far from her, he didn't look bothered, he was waiting patiently, sipping a beer.  
Derek joined her after few minutes and pretended to approach her, whispering something to her ear; she answered with a flirtatious laugh and after a short conversation she followed him to the dance floor. After a few fast rhythm songs the Dj decided for a cozier atmosphere, dimmed the lights and started a slow ballad.  
Derek pulled Emily closer by her waist and she put her arms around his neck; despite they had been working together for over four years they had never been so close to each other. Soon what was done in order to spark the killer's interest and what was the result of a long time repressed attraction became unclear to both of them.  
She teased him moving her fingers up and down his neck, slowly, without taking her eyes away from his, until he got closer and softly kissed her forehead, her temple, her cheek, inhaling her scent and running his hand through her soft hair.  
For an instant they both got lost, unable to push away the reciprocal desire; no more unsub, no more rules, just two lone souls, their bodies, their stories coming together. Their lips locked in a soft, warm kiss; he kept holding her tight, her hands around his neck. They parted almost painfully, regaining conscience of the situation, of the danger, wishing that moment didn't have to end and yet wanting to run away from it and from the potential consequences. They kept their foreheads resting on each other, her warm breath on his cheek sent shivers down his neck, his tight embrace made her feel as safe as she had never felt before; both struggled to regain their demeanor.  
Derek caressed her cheek and slowly ran his hand down her neck, along the shoulder, following the line of the arm until he joined her hand. "Let's go" he whispered.  
They passed through a side exit and reached the fresh air of the parking lot. It was like re-entering the real world, where the rules of the game didn't contemplate their reciprocal desire as a possible option; the chilly air washed away the dizziness of the past moment.  
They headed toward an isolated corner in order to provide their aggressor the illusion of a safe strike, and when the unsub grabbed Derek's shoulders, the profiler was fast in turning, stopping the taser in the other hand and knocking him out. He didn't expect though an accomplice getting at his back with a knife in his hands; before he had the time to react Emily was already engaging and finally disarming him, not before being cut at the right arm and getting a jab to her face, though.  
Only at that point two officers rushed on the second unsub and cuffed him while Hotch and the detective where taking care of the man in Derek's custody.  
Reid joined Prentiss and voiced for paramedics.  
"It's just a scratch" she minimized  
Derek got close to check on her, not saying a word, but from his expression one could say he was badly pissed off.  
She looked at him, patiently waiting for his rage to surface.  
"What the hell was that?" he finally hissed.  
"Me doing my job and stopping an unsub from stabbing you" she answered back without losing her temper.  
"Well, I guess 'no wonder woman' for you means…"  
"…the same 'no Rambo' means for you" she cut him short.  
He gave her a long intense look a mix of worry, fear and urge, There was a lot to talk about and they both know, but that wasn't the right moment.  
Then the paramedics got her into the ambulance, as soon as the doors were shut, she sighed thinking of the hell of trouble she got herself into.


	4. On denial and consequences

Eddie opened the door of his apartment and stared at Emily's bruised face and bandaged arm for a couple of minutes before regaining the ability to speak.  
"Oh my goodness, what the hell happened to you?"  
"Just facing an unexpected unsub" she answered with a half smile.  
"Dear, you have to be more careful! You are not wonder woman, you know that?"  
Emily rolled her eyes "I should introduce you and Derek sometime; you two would get along"  
"Derek?" he asked letting her in.  
"Seriously," she started off "all of you stop being concerned about me, please… And this thing is a bit of a sexist, don't you think? He drives an ambulance with a bomb on it and almost blows up and he's the man of the hour. He jumps from roof to roof chasing a psychopathic armed killer and he's a tough guy. He throws himself through a window, faces an unsub with whom he has personal grudge and nobody says anything except he's a hero. I stop an unsub who is about to stab my colleague in the back and suddenly I am crazy, fanatic, with hidden self-destructive tendencies! What's wrong with the fact that I do my job at my best?"  
Eddie had leaned his back against the wall and listened to Emily's scene shifting from perplexed, to curious, to entertained.  
Finally he smiled amused and asked "Derek, uh? And does this guy care about you as much as you care about him?"  
She groaned back at him and moved toward the piano "Let's play, Eddie"

"I am just saying that I was checking the place to verify the position of the unsub and yours and I happened to witness your intercourse" Garcia said innocently, monitoring for a reaction in Morgan's expression "by the way, you dance like a tiger and I knew that, but also Emily, good grace, she's got the right moves…." Penelope tried to move to a joking tone, even though he didn't seem to catch that.  
"Am I the only one who is concerned about Prentiss's behavior lately?" he jerked nervously.  
"Listen sweetie, you are right to be fuming for the late arrival of the back up, but as far as I am concerned Emily was doing her job, which she's damn good at, and I'm happy she saved your butt" the analyst stated serious.  
Morgan stared at her in silent disagreement.  
"The real point though.." she moved cautiously to the matter she wanted to tackle the most "is that something else happened in Alabama, and pretending that things are the same as before between the two of you is not going to do any good"  
He frowned "What do you mean?"  
"Derek, don't insult me. I've been watching you two overtime, you are like two magnets naturally attracted to each other, and you've been trying to fight nature playing this push-and-pull game until you could, but now it's time to face the truth. You cannot fool yourselves anymore…"  
"Hei! Don't profile me, you sweet thing" he warned her pointing a finger to her nose.  
"I am not profiling, I am just looking at the facts and you should do it too because what is happening between you and Emily is something not even the strongest will power can control, my friend, something so clear that even a seven year old boy could see it.." she reclined her back on the chair swinging playfully, a malicious smile came up while she was biting her lip "So are you going to give me some juicy details, now?"  
Morgan chuckled a bit and eventually he couldn't help letting out a smile "Garcia, I wish I could entertain myself with you longer but I think I have to get back to work, my love" he said leaving the room  
"Oh, come on Derek, don't be prudish! Hei! That's not fair!" she teased him uselessly.

The months passed and what happened in Alabama started to seem the blurry memory of a dream. For a while both Emily and Derek had tried to think of ways to face their feelings, but good intentions seemed to match regularly with bad timing and eventually they gave up and slipped back in the old push and pull game, hiding behind a pile of excuses as they had been successfully doing for the previous years; until one day the situation unlocked with an unexpected turn.  
It was a Friday afternoon and everybody was anxiously staring at the clock looking forward to taking off for the weekend, when Hotch summoned them all in the conference room. Once they were all gathered he looked at their gray faces and grumpy expressions "Relax, it's not a case" he smiled lightly as he could feel the grip instantly loosening and the color coming back on his colleagues faces "Next month there will be a ceremony, it's a dinner organized by the new heads of the bureau, a clunky political event. We are required to participate and we should go accompanied by a person, whoever you want I don't care… but we have to go"  
The team members looked relieved, anything but a case to work on during the weekend would have been welcomed cheerfully. They spent the last minutes of that tired Friday talking together in the conference room.  
"So who are you gonna take?" asked Rossi to Hotch.  
"I don't know. There's this old friend of mine, we used to work together when I was still a prosecutor and she'll be in DC for a conference during those days, it could be a good occasion to catch up, considering hers and my tight schedules"  
"You?"  
"Uh, I will find someone" Dave answered not worried  
"I'll go with Kevin if this is okay with the Bureau policy" Garcia informed.  
"No objections to that" confirmed Hotch  
"What about you Morgan?" asked Reid  
"I'll take Kelly" he answered, trying to dodge the interrogation but giving up as he noticed the frozen silence and the questioning glances around the room "All right" He sighed cutting it short "I sold one of the properties I renovated. She was one of the potential buyers. We went out for a cup of coffee, and now we are dating."  
Garcia and Reid started making childish jokes and playful comments, while Derek left the room with the excuse of having some paperwork to finish.  
Hotch and Rossi left the conference room as well, talking about some case.  
Emily didn't move from her chair; she felt a freezing wave of panic paralyzing her and the turmoil of feelings she had been able to manage up to that moment overwhelmed her. She thought that being thrown in a tank of liquid nitrogen or discovering Derek's new relationship wouldn't have produced a significantly different effect. On second thoughts though the nitrogen would have been better, it would have spared her the torture of seeing him with another woman. And the worst was that she could just blame herself for this.  
The weekend wasn't exactly as Emily expected. Not even the piano could soothe her torment.  
"What's bothering you?" Eddie asked her after she stopped playing in the middle of a piece.  
She looked at him realizing that until few months before Morgan would have been the one asking that question; that no piano, crazy work or lame excuses could make up for her pain, nor heal the crack she felt inside. She had wondered so many times how things could have gone if they went down that road, allowing themselves a bit of happiness, stopping to deny their wish of a normal life, a normal relationship. Many times she had fantasized about the different options, none of them leading to a happy ending, all of them crushing with their job and their style of life.  
She turned to Eddie, a tear running down her cheek "Have you ever considered how things could have been if you had acted differently at a certain moment of your life?"  
Eddie chuckled and sighed deeply, a dark shadow coming on his eyes "My dear, I do that each day, every single moment.."  
That day Emily learned about Eddie's story.

Eddie took one of the pictures from the wall and gave it to Emily "My wife Julia and my two daughters, Alyssa and Claire, a happy family; honest jobs, a quiet life, no troubles, two beautiful daughters. Alyssa, the older, has always been the pragmatic and down-earthed one, no surprise when she decided to be a lawyer. Claire got my love for music; I think she started playing piano before being fully able to walk. At the conservatory she was the best pupil, such a grace"  
Something broke in his voice, his breath became irregular "She gives piano tuition to make some extra money. One day she receives this call by a man asking for some lessons. She jokes with us about the fact that something's creepy in his voice and we all laugh while she mimics him. It was the last time we saw her alive. They found her after two weeks. The detective didn't know how to prepare us when we went to recognize her at the morgue. I couldn't understand, we needed to see our baby, to know it was her. I couldn't even hug her. That son of a bitch butchered her, he cut her into pieces, he took away her fingers, they said as a trophy. He destroyed my little baby …There's no day I don't ask myself what would have been if I had told her not to go, not to trust that voice." Eddie was a hollow cocoon devoured by the loss, he had cried all his tears and now only restless pain was left.  
After few minutes Emily asked softly "Did they find who did this?"  
"No. They searched everywhere. The apartment was empty, no traces, no leads, no witnesses, no prints. The police gave up, but I couldn't. I found other people killed in the same way, in different times, different states, I talked to the police but nobody listened to me. I started drinking, lost my job, my sanity, Julia and Alyssa moved out. Now I am trying to get my life back, I go to the AA meetings and I get to see my family sometimes"  
"Eddie," she took a pause before asking, not sure if that would help him "I can look through those cases if you want me to, I can see if there is a connection. But I cannot promise you will have answers or closure"  
He looked at her, aware of the risk reopening that wound implied "I just know that there's someone out there who killed my baby girl and probably other people. Would you give up?"


	5. On new and old friends

"Penelope, have you pulled out the files I asked you?" Emily came into the office with renovated energy after the weekend. She honestly didn't know if she would have been able to find something concrete, but she wanted to help Eddie and some extra work offered also the ideal chance to placate her reckless pain.  
"Yes, my dear! Pretty dark material, not that we usually comb dolls, but I would think of a lighter reading for the goodnight time…" she hesitated giving her the files "Emily, are you sure you are fine? I mean it's been a tough period, you've been working so hard…" and you closing up, and the case in Alabama, and you and Derek.  
Emily delicately took Garcia's hands in hers "Penelope, you know how much I value our friendship and your care for me, don't you? I understand you all think I am being extreme and reckless but I can assure you I'm fine" She gave her one of her smiles, the ones which could make one believe that nothing bad would ever happen and that after all this world was a beautiful place. She had always wondered what if people could see what actually was passing through her mind when she was putting that reassuring face on.  
Penelope nodded and smiled childishly, moved by the nice and unexpected words.  
Emily went on "I am trying to help a friend, and I don't even know if there is a case here, so can this thing stay between you and me for now? It's something I do out of my own time and there's no need to inform the team."  
The analyst nodded affirmatively and sniffed looking at her leaving; when she was already out of the door she mumbled to herself "Derek, you were such a fool in letting her go.."  
That night in front of a cup of coffee Emily dove into the information Garcia had put together. Seven files, seven victims, apparently nothing in common.  
Seven people abducted and killed in four different states along the East Coast in the round of two years, their bodies found dismembered few weeks after the abduction. Due to the state of the rests it was difficult to perform a thorough autopsy, the unsub had dismembered the bodies brutally and carelessly, but when it came to the hands it was all another story, the fingers had been removed surgically, and they were all missing.  
She was still reading the files when the alarm clock rang: 6:30 am.  
It was the first of a long series of sleepless nights.

It had been a rather hectic month for Emily, when she was not working she was either playing the piano or studying the case; she became obsessed, fueled by coffee and barely sleeping or eating, deep shadows under her eyes became permanent guests on her hollow face.  
One night she was finishing to fill in a report, the bullpen was almost desert except for her and Reid.  
The young doctor closed his file and looked at her for few minutes "Emily, do you remember when I had that problem after being abducted and tortured? I was reckless, I told you awful things…" he swallowed a couple of times trying to fight the dryness in his mouth.  
"Reid are you okay?" She stopped writing and stared at him worried.  
"Y.. Yes, yes I am, very much as a matter of fact. What I want to say is that back in time everybody in the team was really tolerant with me, except you. You faced me and even if at that time I didn't appreciate it, it was mainly thanks to you that I realized that I had a problem…"  
She gave him a sweet glance "Reid thank you for saying that, but I think you would have dealt with it anyway. You are stronger than you think, believe me" then she adjusted on her chair "where do you want to go with this?"  
"I think something's bothering you. And whatever that is, it's consuming you, and it's affecting your health and your job"  
"I'm sorry, have I been inappropriate on the job?" she asked defensive.  
"No, on the contrary. You are restless, like a machine, but you can't go on pushing this hard forever" Reid clarified  
Emily kept silent for a few moments, moved by Reid's concern but not knowing how to answer. Her phone ringing rescued her by the rest of the interrogation.  
"Tell me you love me" a soft voice whispered on the phone.  
"Garcia, I can't be naughty right now, the kid is listening" she joked back  
"Oh, you are so prudish Agent Prentiss! Are you on speaker?"  
"Nope. Why?"  
"I have found something else on the case you're not working on. Something you really should see"  
Short after the analyst was looking at her with a concerned expression "Okay, if you remember, some time ago you told me that you valued our friendship a lot. So as a friend I have to tell you that I am really, really worried about you and I think you should bring this case to Hotch."  
Emily sighed deeply, getting ready to the second round of questions "Garcia, as I told you sometime ago I really appreciate your concern, but I'm fine. Regarding the case, I am afraid that up to now I have only seven people dead in.."  
"25" the analyst interrupted her.  
"What?"  
"T-w-e-n-t-y-f-i-v-e people" she slowly articulated her words "I expanded the research, out of curiosity. Nine people killed between 2000 and 2002 in various states on the West coast, same MO, body dismembered, fingers missing. Other nine people in the central states between 2004 and 2006, same story. And…"  
"And now two people are missing to complete the series" Emily ended the sentence "Garcia, you are beyond amazing" she said while looking at the new pile of files she had to go through.  
Few minutes later she was about to get in her car, the new files piled up on the passenger seat.  
"Hei" Morgan came out of nowhere making her startle.  
"Hei" she answered back.  
They had been wisely limiting this kind of face-to-face situations lately, especially during the last month.  
"Never a good idea to take work at home" he pointed the files in her car.  
And here it comes the third speech of the day she mentally commented trying to display a conciliatory face.  
"Especially if you are already dragging yourself around like a ghost" he continued.  
She mentally beat herself, hating that he had noticed how far from fine she was, whereas he looked as usual in control.  
"I am fine Morgan. I am.." totally heartbroken, reckless, messed-up and I want you back badly she fought back the memory of their kiss and the need of having him again in her life like it was back in time.  
"Do you know I used to play the piano when I was younger?" she tried to shift to a less painful topic.  
"Ehm, no I didn't" he answered disoriented by the sudden change of subject.  
"Well, I got back to it recently, and now it's like a drug. I cannot stop, seriously" a nervous laughter shook her chest "I could play day and night. I guess it's my stress buster, like your properties or the theater for Garcia or Star Trek contests for Reid"  
He looked at her with a smile that didn't get to his eyes, wondering if he would ever been able to break that shield she put up for him, wondering how long he could go on seeking oblivion and comfort in other women.  
"Emily you know I am here anytime you need, right?" he turned serious.  
She forced her lips to curl and jumped into her car with a lump in her throat. She didn't know if her little show succeeded in fooling him, and she didn't care. She just wanted to get the hell out of that parking lot as soon as possible.

Emily entered her house feeling her burden becoming unbearably heavy; she wanted to scream and shout and cry and tear apart everything she could.  
She walked slowly toward the grand piano purchased after realizing that the restaurant's and Eddie's ones where not enough anymore to soothe her pain and satiate her need.  
To fight an addiction with another addiction, it managed to provide her with two obsessions for the price of one. Great idea she smiled bitterly.  
The piano was not the only recently added item in her apartment. Piles of files divided in seven groups, one for each victim, were lying on the floor.  
A big white board standing in the center of the living room reported all the dates and connections between the killings; pictures of the victims when still alive and smiling, along with the ones of their dismembered bodies.  
Derek was right; it was not healthy.  
After almost a month spent digging she had been able to pinpoint two things the victims had in common; first they all played piano at a professional or semiprofessional level and their abduction followed a live performance, second few days before disappearing they had received anonymously a red rose and a fragment of a musical score. Those fragments were all pinned in sequence on a separate board.  
She had just started to go through the recent files when someone knocked at the door. Penelope.  
Emily opened the door, ready with an excuse to send her away, but the words faded away.  
"Please, let me help you" Penelope practically begged.  
Emily let her in.  
The analyst needed a few moments to regain speech after being welcomed by the gruesome display of pictures, "Oh Emily.." was the only comment she could moan realizing how miserable and afflicted her friend was.  
"Don't worry. I'm going to cover them" the profiler reassured heading toward the kitchen to prepare some coffee.  
Garcia turned her attention to the piano "that's quite an expensive decorative item " she joked playfully, trying not to look in the direction of the pictures.  
"I play sometimes" Emily answered.  
"You know" Garcia continued, gracefully caressing the white keys "After I got shot I made sure not to have a free moment in my day schedule. Victims counseling, IT teaching, knitting… everything that could fill my time and keep my mind busy was like a balm to me. Until one day I finally realized there was no escape and I had to fight my demons. So I was wondering, are you just helping a friend or is there something else? Because if there is, and I think so, and I think you know what I am referring to, then my friend there won't be a case, or piano, or excuse strong enough to heal your pain. And in case you wanted to talk about that, I am all ears"  
Emily went to sit close to her and started playing a melody; then with the notes came the words, with the words the pain and with the pain the tears.

Derek looked at the flashing numbers on the clock display: 3.55 am.  
Slices of moon filtrating through the curtains shed stripes of light on his bed, on his arm, and the face of the woman resting asleep on his chest. He sighed staring at the ceiling.  
He had never believed in rebound stories, but for a while he thought that making an effort he would have been able to convey his feelings on the right kind of relationship, an easy one that didn't involve messing up a friendship and crossing a half dozen rules on fraternization between co-workers.  
Obviously a bad idea, his friendship with Emily was compromised anyway and having her around all day, so close and yet so distant, was so painful that sometimes he wanted to scream; and now he had to deal also with Kelly, a beautiful but very exigent woman, with whom he had nothing to share. After the first excitement of dating a FBI guy, she had started being annoyed by his job. His crazy schedule and the impossibility of making plans made her flustered, she found repulsing that he spent his days digging in the filthiest minds and didn't understand his care for Ellie Spicer, after all why looking after a child who wasn't even his? He couldn't understand why she was always coming back to him.  
He looked at the date on the clock and reclined his head suffocating a series of curses; the damned FBI dinner, he had completely forgotten about that.


	6. On searching and being found

The dinner had proved to be exactly what everybody expected it to be: a deadly boring political arena.  
Hotch had taken his friend, a witty fireball with a huge mass of red hair and an honest smile. Garcia took Kevin, who was extremely concerned about the etiquette and thus even clumsier than usual. Reid, with great surprise of the group, arrived with a date called Mel, a girl who apparently gave him a hard time at some chess tournament. Rossi was with his editor who had definitely a thing for him considering the glances she was throwing at him. And Morgan was with Kelly, who was doing her best to please him. Emily had managed to persuade Eddie to come along and apart the intense instinct to rip Kelly's head off she was handling the situation quite well.  
"So," she leaned toward him whispering at his ear "You might be wondering why I took you to this kingdom of boredom" she smiled excited and pointed a spot on the opposite side of the hall where they were sitting. There was a stage left in the darkness and at the far corner a grand piano "Apparently a young prodigy is going to perform tonight, they say he's terrific" this and Eddie's company were actually the thoughts she was trying to focus on.  
"And what is this young genius going to perform?" he asked suddenly interested.  
"Mozart concert number 20" Reid and his date answered in unison.  
"Two nerds with one stone" Garcia commented amused "Such cuties!"  
"How refreshing! Everybody plays Mozart nowadays.." Kelly commented glacial.  
Despite all her efforts Prentiss couldn't help wishing to throw her out of the window.  
"Well, that is true Madam, but it's unfortunately rare to have Mozart performed in the way it's intended, and when this happens it's a miracle. No matter how many times you listened to a piece, you would spend a lifetime with it" Eddie kindly answered.  
The concert started and Eddie and Emily were not disappointed, the young pianist was truly talented and his performance flawless.  
"Wow" Kelly broke the silence after the clap was over "you were right Eddie, I really didn't want it to end".  
"Yep, the guy is going to have a bright future" Rossi commented with a smile.  
Emily noticed how Eddie was saddened by that comment, probably thinking that performing at that piano there could have been his daughter; she squeezed his hand giving him an encouraging smile.  
"It was like if ten hands were all moving contemporary on the keys. It was amazing!" Kevin commented enthusiastically.  
"Actually ten hands wouldn't still be able to cover all the keys" Reid specified "In a piano there are 88 keys of which 52 white and 36 black…"  
"Which means eighteen hands to have them all covered" Mel completed the sentence.  
"Namely nine people" he stated the obvious smiling at her "And that's pretty impressive if you think that all that work is done by just one pair of hands" he finished his dissertation with a satisfied smile.  
Rossi contemplated the 'duplication of Reid' with raised eyebrows and panicky shook his head thinking of the potential offspring of little geniuses crawling around and giving stats, numbers and anecdotes on every topic of conversation.  
"Reid, can you repeat?" Emily asked, suddenly concentrated on a train of thoughts.  
"What's wrong Miss Brightside, do you need an abacus?" Garcia mocked her.  
Eighty-eight keys, eighty-eight fingers, eighteen hands, nine people. Her thought looked so absurd that she immediately abandoned it, promising herself not to think about the case that night. She laughed back at Garcia's teasing and all of a sudden she had a déjà-vu of that night at the restaurant months before when she had first met Eddie, when everything was still smooth and easy and Derek was the good friend she could count on.

The night lazily slipped away through several bottles of wine and dull conversations. Gradually the guests started to leave and the hall got less and less busy. Eddie noticed Emily looking away from the table distracted, while her fingers where thumbing on the table "So, how do you feel about shaking the atmosphere a little bit?" he smiled at her suggestively.  
She gave him back a death glare  
"Come on, you are not anymore the scared duckling I met months ago. You've learnt to listen to you fear, now it's high time to learn how to manage it. And in these cases the best approach is the shock therapy" he assured before walking her toward the stage.  
For that night she had chosen a long blue cobalt dress that exalted her raven hair and her complexion and rested on her lines as if it was tailored to her; Derek couldn't take his eyes off her while she was walking toward the piano. He had been monitoring the interaction between her and Eddie for the entire night and was now looking at them suspicious trying to understand who that man was to her.  
"Does anybody know what's going on?" Derek asked voicing the curiosity of the whole group.  
"Wait and watch my sunshine, you won't be disappointed" Penelope smiled at him.  
The way Derek was staring at Emily made Kelly feel uneasy. It was a glare that conveyed a mix of urge and concern, a glare that if he hadn't been her man she wouldn't have hesitated to define as desire, a glare he had never addressed to her. She had noticed the stealthy glances they had been secretly throwing at each other when the other was not watching and she started doubting that his job was not the only thing getting in the way between them. She tried to test the waters touching lightly Derek's arm, he didn't react, tensed as rock, eyes on the stage, nothing else than Emily in his mind. He didn't even noticed when Kelly left.

After Eddie left her alone on the stage Emily seriously considered running away, then she thought he was right, it was high time to face her fears. She walked toward the piano, willingly ignoring everything else, her hands sweating, her heartbeat rushing; when she finally touched the keys all the tension vanished.  
The hall turned silent as Emily elegantly started playing, her head bowed following the rhythm of the music, her ivory arms moved like the wings of a swan. The notes of Rachmaninoff filled the room.  
Her colleagues and friends were staring at her speechless, hypnotized by the effortless grace with which she moved her fingers over the keys. When the music stopped Emily was exhausted and thrilled. She recorded the surrounding environments as a series of snapshots: Penelope hugging her warmly, her colleagues complimenting, Derek carelessly getting too close and whispering something in his husky voice, Eddie smiling proud, the person with the red rose leaving the hall…  
She started running after that figure before she could even think rationally of the consequences, until she reached a dark deserted isle.


	7. On delayed talks and premature turns of events

The aisle was desert. Either she was hallucinating, either whoever she saw had vanished.  
"Emily?" he came at her shoulders.  
She almost jumped "God, Derek you have to stop taking me aback!" she sighed.  
He stared for a few seconds before speaking "Are you okay?"  
"I don't know.." she answered still looking around "I am sorry, you were telling me something in the hall, I didn't hear what you were saying.."  
"I said you were beautiful up there.. well, you are beautiful on a regular basis, but that was definitely something hard to forget"  
She looked at him confused before realizing he had truly said that; she tried to answer but she only managed to gasp and look at him with a skeptical glare that was screaming 'Derek Morgan what kind of game are you playing!'  
He chuckled and smiled smugly shaking his head.  
"Where is Kelly?" she asked with a tone that came out more inquisitive than she wanted it to be.  
He sensed the Prentiss-shield coming up and answered calm "Gone"  
"Did she get bored with us?"  
"No, just with me" he looked serious.  
"Oh" she answered not knowing exactly what to say, "I am sure you will fix it"  
"I don't think so. I hope not so" he giggled again, this time with a bitter note.  
Then he looked entertained at her confused face "Prentiss, you are impossible. You know that?"  
"Excuse me?"  
He came closer "Could you please explain to me why you can't believe that I want you as much as you want me?"  
"Wow…Don't you think you are being a bit arrogant?" she turned defensive.  
"Come on, Emily. Let's not make it an high school thing" He said not losing his point.  
She took a step back, staring away from him and nervously rubbing one feet on the floor "Derek, we've been already at this turning point"  
"…and we took what we thought was the safest way, and we've been miserable for months and it didn't work."  
"Well, I have been miserable" she bit her lip resentful for admitting it so fast "you didn't seem so shattered with miss 'everybody plays Mozart'!"  
"Emily…"  
"Then she dumps you and here you are, with your husky voice and your smile and your pick-up-bullshit" she blurted out upset.  
"Fine. You're right I screwed up. At least I admit it."  
Point taken, he wasn't wrong on that.  
"Emily, I am not saying it's going to be easy, but I don't see how it can be worse than the hell we put ourselves through."  
"Derek I.."  
"It's not a lifetime commitment I'm asking for, but we need to talk. Seriously. We should have done this a long time ago." He finally met her gaze "I think you already know that, I think you know as well as I do that if we rewound back what happened we would end up at the same exact point, I think this has been a long time coming, but we pretended not too see because we were too scared of how things would have changed, I think that like it or not we are caught into this feeling and no matter what we force ourselves to believe or what rationally seems the best, deep down we want this so badly that's even painful, and we would run away from, it if it only worked, to sooth the urge and placate our need for each other "  
Emily beat herself for being so hesitant and frightened to accept what she'd been dreaming of for months. Finally she took a step toward him and softly caressed his face. She closed the distance, bowed her head and..  
"Emily!" Garcia interrupted the moment running toward them, alarm in her voice "the young pianist who performed tonight.. They cannot find him. Last time his fiancé saw him he was walking out of the hall in this direction. He had just received a red rose and card…"


	8. On crazy theories and reasonable leads

Hotch was sitting with a restive expression. Emily had dragged him and the team to the bureau with a confused series of excuses and frankly he had given her leeway because he knew she was a valid agent and wouldn't summon the team for nothing. But now he and the others where staring at the void in the conference room, tired and discretely drunk and there was no trace of Emily.  
He looked at Rossi who opened his arms and raised his eyebrows being as clueless as he was, then turned to the technical analyst "Penelope, you seem to know something about this story. Would you please inform us?"  
The analyst stared at the Unit Chief not knowing what to answer when finally Emily entered with the material she recovered from her apartment.  
Hotch stared at the huge pile of files she was carrying "Prentiss, have you despoiled the FBI archives?" he commented more and more astonished shifting from Emily to Garcia.  
"That's all on me." Emily clarified "The daughter of a friend of mine has been murdered two years ago, he thought it might be a serial killer, so I looked into the case during my free time"  
The glares she received back by her Hotch were less and less promising at any detail she uncovered: using bureau resources for personal reasons, working on a closed case without invitation, carrying the work at home, basically the full good profiler's not-to-do-list.  
"And did you find something?" Rossi asked.  
"Yes, in the beginning I believed the same person killed seven people during the last three years"  
"In the beginning?" Derek asked.  
"Yesterday I received new information when Garcia expanded the search. Now I believe that the same unsub killed 25 people in the last ten years. I also believe the same unsub abducted the pianist from the party tonight."  
Silence. A little coughing, then silence again. And eyes wide open with incredulous, doubtful, questioning looks.  
Hotch cleared his voice "Prentiss are you sure of what you are saying?"  
"Yes."  
"Then we've got work to do. Brief us on the case and do it fast, if you believe a serial killer abducted that pianist we need to alert the police and we need to provide good reasons for that."  
Emily went on for about an hour describing details, names, places, dates that by now she knew by heart.  
"Prentiss" Hotch commented when she finished "it's useless to say that what you did is reckless, risky and unhealthy; apart from that good job. From now on I expect you to share all your knowledge on the case with us or you're out. Understood?"  
She nodded, grateful for the trust he granted her.  
Hotch was seriously upset, but in honesty he didn't think he would have acted differently in her place.  
"Ok, then." Rossi made the point of the situation "We do have an unsub who already killed 25 people and is going for other two to close this round. Which means that if we don't catch him soon, we might loose him. Apart from the MO we don't have anything, motive, suspects…this guy was smart, accurate and lucky also. I mean with such a distinctive MO how could nobody link the dots before?"  
"Maybe this is exactly the point" Reid intervened "using such a particular signature could be a request to be stopped"  
"Or a challenge" Rossi continued "Catch me if you can. He is bold, fast and precise"  
"Still we don't have a motive" Hotch commented, then he looked at Emily, who seemed ill at ease at his statement "Prentiss, we don't have a motive. Right?"  
She looked at him with her oh-this-is-gonna-suck expression and then gave up "We don't have a motive, but I could have a theory… A crazy theory…"  
"We're all ears" Rossi encouraged her.  
"I couldn't figure out why series of nine victims at a time, a weird number at first sight, but then Reid said that thing about the piano: 88 keys, 88 fingers, nine people, nine victims…"  
"Are you suggesting that the unsub kills pianists to cut their fingers and use them to build a piano?" Hotch tried to make it clear.  
"I know it's crazy, but that's what I think"  
"But it doesn't fit" Reid objected "Nine people are 90 fingers, the unsub needs 88"  
Prentiss looked at him baffled "Well that means that either my theory is crap, either asking for one out of nine pianists with two fingers missing was too much of a hassle for our unsub, so he went for a round number" she really liked Reid, but sometimes he made her question the frail boundary between genius and autism.  
"What about the first victim?" Morgan suggested "There's the chance that he started personal and then got random. Maybe if we delve into his first we could have more information and even a validation on Prentiss theory".  
"I haven't got into those files yet" Emily sighed, she couldn't help thinking that if she had been faster now a young man wouldn't be risking his life.  
Hotch assigned the team the different tasks, then contacted the local police to issue a missing alert for the young pianist.

Morgan laid a cup of coffee on her desk "Emily, you did a great job in finding the connection between the victims and no, you couldn't possibly know who the next victim would be and when. So stop beating yourself" he said sitting next to her.  
"You never miss anything right?"  
"Well, you have been nurturing an obsession for this guy for over a month and I didn't understand anything, this doesn't make me a great guesser, neither a good friend..."  
"I kinda did my best to be unapproachable lately" she recognized staring at a spot on her desk  
"You know what I mean. I had noticed something was off, but things between us were awkward between us and I thought you wanted me to keep the distance, so I backed off. I shouldn't have"  
"That's ok, Morgan. I already told you once that I can fool people for weeks, this doesn't apply only to boyfriends" she answered still avoiding eye contact.

Hotch couldn't hide his concern observing all the material recovered from Prentiss' apartment, it wasn't healthy to deal all day with unsubs and then once back home getting more of it. He looked at Rossi standing beside him "Do you think she can be impartial on this?" asked his opinion.  
The senior profiler briefly looked at him and then returned to Emily "Well I don't think we've got many other choices, this unsub became an obsession for her and even if you get her off the case you know she will go on investigating by herself, which means only troubles. Besides nobody knows the case better than her, so we can use her and at the same time take care that she doesn't get hurt"  
"I should have noticed that something was off with her" Hotch commented  
"Aaron, you cannot check everyone's steps. You are not their father and they are grown up adults. Emily is a good profiler and knows what she does. She will be fine." Rossi insisted.  
"Anyway I'll tell Morgan to keep an eye on her. To make sure she is fine" he concluded and joined the other profilers.  
Rossi stared at Morgan and Prentiss before following Hotch; being an older profiler and also the last one to join the team had always given him a more objective eye when it came to detect cracks and anomalies in his colleagues. Over the last months he had noticed something going on between the two profilers; Morgan had always been a player, he flirted with Garcia and mocked Prentiss continuously, but his relationship with Emily had evolved overtime. It had been a gradual change, small imperceptible steps at a time, which brought them closer and closer. Now, observing them, he could see two dedicated profilers, in their late thirties, single and aware of what a nightmare personal relationships were with this kind of profession, visibly caring and understanding each other. It wouldn't be surprised in seeing them crossing the boundaries of professional friendship if only they weren't so stiff and worried about the rules. He smiled remembering of how many times he had crossed those rules; he couldn't find a single occasion in which he had regretted doing that.


	9. On entering the wolf's den and getting caught

"Ok, the police now considers Kile Connor, the pianist, as a missing person. Anything useful on the first victim?" Hotch joined the team.  
"James Van Horn, 52, he was an orchestra director who after retiring became director of a music school. Nothing outstanding about him except a mention in a local newspaper for establishing a fellowship for disable students after one of his most promising pupils got involved in a car accident that ended her career" Reid answered.  
"Garcia, can you tell us something more about this accident?" asked Morgan  
"Rhetorical question sweet pea…" she chirped back "Back in 1999, during a dark winter night Van Horn was driving back from a concert where his pupil, Rose Lawson, had performed when they lost control of the car and fell off the road"  
"Was he the driver?" asked Hotch.  
"Nope, she was driving… He was injured pretty badly. He broke his hipbone, dislocated shoulder, three broken ribs and a perforated lung, brain hematoma and he had his spleen removed" she listed.  
"What about the girl?" asked Rossi  
"She broke her arm in two points and she injured some nerves. She recovered, but the poor thing could never regain the full use of her hand and her career was over" she commented pulling out the picture of the car crashed and of the teacher with her pupil.  
"So let me get it right" Prentiss intervened "she drives the car, causes the accident, almost kills him and in response he provides her with a special fellowship to go on playing? That's sounds like a lot of guilt to me. "  
"Or he was just an affectionate teacher" Morgan added.  
"Well, we should ask her" resolved Rossi, looking for approval in Hotch's direction, but his phone rang before he could give an answer to his colleague.  
Penelope replied in his vice "I don't see it happening sir. Rose Lawson committed suicide in 2001, soon after getting married to Mike McAdams, orthopedic surgeon, ehm her orthopedic surgeon. That's sounds such a romantic drama cliché" she commented with a hint of drama in her voice.  
"And here is the medical knowledge necessary to remove fingers" commented Rossi "Van Horn was the one who triggered him. After the accident Rose loses her career and her dreams, nothing is worth living anymore, not even her husband, so she commits suicide and he looks for revenge"  
"Garcia, check where Dr McAdams worked during the last 10 years, please" asked Reid  
"Annnd, there it is mon cher! Our doctor Frankenstein worked in Portland, Oregon between 2000 and 2003, afterward he moved to Wichita, Kansas until the end of 2005 and finally in December 2007 he started working in Washington DC"  
"Fits with the geographical pattern of the abductions" Emily observed almost disappointed  
"But?" asked Rossi  
"But I don't see how this guy could be our unsub. He might have killed Van Horn for revenge but he has a lot of guilt too; he couldn't save his wife's arm, he couldn't save her life, he doesn't even know anything about music or pianos. It's just a gut feeling, but it doesn't feel right…"  
"Well gut feeling or not, this is the closest thing to a suspect we have, Prentiss" Morgan intervened "He was in the area at the time of the abductions and he is connected to one of the victims. The least we can do is talking to him."  
Hotch interrupted the discussion coming back into the room.  
"Hotch, here we may have a suspect" Rossi announced  
"For sure we have the rests of Kyle Connelly, body dismembered, fingers missing"  
"He's been faster this time. Do you think he knows we are getting closer?" asked Morgan  
"If so he will look for another victim soon" Rossi answered  
"Or maybe he has already found it" commented Reid  
"What do you mean?" asked Morgan  
"If he abducted Connelly during the dinner he must have been there while he was performing, and Connelly was not the only one who played last night…"  
All the eyes turned to Emily.  
Hotch immediately decided "Prentiss, you're…"  
"Don't even think about that" she cut him short with the surprise of everyone in the room "If what you are gonna say is that I'm out of the case, well you can forget about that"  
"Prentiss, you are a potential target for an unsub we're clueless about" Morgan tried to make her reason.  
"Exactly, potential. We don't know that for sure, and if that's the case, then use me. I'm the last chance before he disappears again"  
"No!" Morgan replied.  
Emily gave him a dry look, then turned to Hotch who was actually considering the situation.  
"I'm not sitting out of this case" she concluded resolutely.  
The unit chief looked painfully at her and then at the other members of the team "You will have full protection, day and night. You don't go anywhere without someone informed on your movements. You don't do anything unless authorized, and by that I mean you don't even go to the toilet without supervision, clear?" in moments like that he hated his job.  
All the team members exchanged afflicted looks, aware that there wasn't much else they could do but wishing their friend didn't have to deal with this. Derek looked at them all and left the room.

Emily joined him while he was furiously pacing up and down in the parking lot. "Hei" she approached brushing her fingers on the signs his knuckles left on a metal door "I am just doing my job, you know that. Don't you?"  
"No you are trying to get killed" he answered dryly "and going down this road you might well succeed"  
"Like you always do, but nobody ever addresses you as a suicidal obsessed freak" she commented, taking his hand and checking the signs the door left on his knuckles.  
"Where do you want to go with this Emily?"  
"You told me you had my back" she gently took his hand in hers "so I need to know if this still applies because in the next days I could very much use your support. But I need to know that you respect my professional capability and you treat me like a colleague, not a reckless vulnerable damsel who needs protection".  
"So do you expect me to stare in silence while you offer yourself to a butcher?"  
"No, Derek I expect you to give me back up and help me to stop this son of a bitch"  
He sighed, knowing there was no way to dissuade her. After a long silence he warned her "I am going to be your shadow, literally I'll stick to you 24/7, understood?"  
"Sounds nice to me" she mocked him smugly.

Once everything was set Hotch gathered the team "Morgan and I will go and get this doctor McAdams. There's a lot we have to talk about. Reid and Dave, I want you to go on looking into the victims. See if there are any other leads or anything confirming our suspects"  
"I would like to go and talk to Eddie, I want to see if there is any other detail he can recall" proposed Emily.  
"Fine, an agent will come with you" Hotch answered her.  
"Ah, something that could be of use" Emily suddenly remembered "Eddie's daughter was contacted by the unsub with an excuse before being abducted, she commented on the fact that he had a creepy voice. I'll ask more detail to Eddie, but maybe it can be of use when you talk to McAdams"  
"Fine, let me know if you find out something new" Hotch addressed all the team and they split.

Emily got to the parking lot where the agent assigned to her protection was waiting for her in a SUV.  
"Hei" she greeted entering the vehicle "I'm Emily Prentiss. Apparently you'll have to babysit me for a few hours"  
"Oh, I will do much more than that" said the female velvet voice at the driver's seat.  
Emily always appreciated women in law enforcement; she looked up smiling and froze recognizing that face.  
A hand, coming out of nowhere grabbed her from her shoulders and pressed on her mouth a cloth soaked with some kind of sedative.  
"Be gentle. I have got special plans for her" was the last thing Emily could hear before losing consciousness.


	10. On blood and roses

"What do you mean you want to wait?" he's freaking out  
"Are you stupid or you're just trying to make me nervous?" she says, there's an edge of amusement in her voice  
"I am just saying that we don't have much time left. They are getting closer.."  
"Dear, sometimes speaking with you is so frustrating" she sighs in disappointment "what do we always say?"  
"If a game is well played you don't mind the final score" he repeats not seeming really persuaded.  
"Exactly. So do you think that what we did up to now was just not to be caught?"  
Silence.  
"Bravo." She comments keeping her voice calm and relaxed, Emily can perceive her smiling "We did something grand and the last one is going to be special. So, now let down your scalpel or I swear I'll shove it up your ass so high that…"  
"Okay, okay, okay!" he cries in a submissive tone "just don't get mad at me"  
Emily regained progressively memory of what happened while listening at that odd conversation. That sedative they gave her left a feeling of hung-over and a disgusting taste in her mouth. She tried to look around to understand where she was and the possible escapes, but she realized that her head as well as her entire body were tied to what seemed to be a surgical table, judging by the cold hard surface she was lying on. She tried to move her fingers and toes and her limbs. Everything was still in place; whatever they wanted to do to her they hadn't started with the slicing yet. At least some good news..  
The woman got closer to Emily, her eyes two dead ice blue mirrors. "Hi Emily" still that note of amusement in her calm tone "If you are not going to shout I'll remove the gag from your mouth. If you are not going to play G.I. Joe I'll untie you. You break the rules, I cut your throat. Clear?"  
Emily nodded.  
They moved into a room where there was a couch, a table with two chairs and a piano and nothing else, it was probably an apartment rented temporarily just for the time to chop her.  
The woman gave her a big excited smile, the first hint of emotion in her eyes "First of all, I owe you a big thank you" she started.  
Emily frowned.  
"For finding me. My goodness! Ten years gutting people around the country and not a policeman chasing us. I was seriously considering a change in our modus operandi, I thought maybe if I stick on a pole a couple of bodies I will spark more interest… But then you started putting the pieces together, and you play also, what a fortunate coincidence! Not bad for an amateur, by the way.." Then she grinned, "Oh gosh, I am being so rude, I didn't even introduce myself properly. I am…"  
"Rose Lawson" Emily preceded her.  
A big smile of approval "You are so good. It's such a shame that I have to kill you" but the shine in her eyes was telling another story.  
Emily looked at her expression; this woman was pure psychopath, the utter lucidity and excitement with which she was referring to the murders was petrifying "If you are going to kill me why did you untie me?"  
"Because you deserve a treat. The rule is simple, you play the game at your best until you get caught, and now you found us. Well technically we found you, but you were almost there. So I want to be generous, you have the right to ask me one questions before you die"  
How generous. "Any question?"  
"Any"  
The only choice Emily had was to play along and make her talk as much as she could to buy sometime, hoping the others would get at her before it was too late. She casted a glance to the clock on the wall, it had been three hours since she had been taken and at that point they must have realized something was wrong. She looked back at Rose, she was beautiful, long blond waves framed her big blue eyes and crimson lips on a porcelain skin, one could barely notice the rigidity in her hand. "I want to hear your story" she said looking her straight in the eyes.  
"Because you want to buy time?" she asked her maliciously  
"Because I want to understand how a beautiful, successful woman turns herself and her husband into merciless killers" she answered without winking.  
"Well then, let's start" Rose smiled back.

"No, I am not calming down. I want to know how a serial killer enters the bureau, knocks down two guards and an agent and abducts one of my agents!" Hotch was furiously shouting at the phone with the responsible of the security.  
The rest of the team had been working frantically to find where McAdams was after not finding him at work neither at home, but without success.  
Garcia was typing at her fastest on the keyboard chasing ten leads at a time and always ending with an impasse; Derek was sitting in her office going through all the information they could gather on McAdams, he hadn't spoken a word since they found out that Emily was missing. The agent supposed to protect her had been knocked out and near him a red rose with a fragment of a musical score was found.  
"Derek? Please say something. You are scaring me" the analyst begged him without stopping the movement of her hands on the keys.  
"I promised I would protect her, I promised I would help her to catch this bastard and now she's in the hands of a serial killer ready to cut her into pieces and we don't have a damn idea on where she could be."  
"Honey it's not your fault"  
"All this time, Penelope. All those months watching each other in the distance, like strangers, picking ridicule excuses as the bureau rules, seeking comfort in the wrong places... And now I don't know if I will ever see her again" he ran a hand on his forehead, and was about to say something when Reid and Rossi entered the room, another person behind them.  
"You two remember Emily's friend, Mr …?"  
"Call me Eddie" the man stepped forward "I know Emily was abducted so I thought maybe there is something I can do, some detail I can provide to help you"  
"Thanks a lot, maybe you can follow Dr Reid and answer some questions" Derek suggested.  
Eddie liked Derek; he had liked him since the very first moment he noticed the way he looked at Emily. He nodded and turned to leave the room when he noticed the pictures, "Oh, Van Horn's Rose" he commented.  
"Excuse me?" Derek asked.  
"That's the way she was called. She was his best pupil, his rose. Rumors had that they were lovers, and considering Van Horn's reputation it was probably true. They said she drove the car off road because he was trying to leave her and go back with his wife. They said that she actually never died and came back to kill him."  
"What do you mean?" asked Rossi.  
"She left a letter and then she jumped into a river, her husband was the only witness. Her body was never found."  
"Garcia, check all the properties, accounts, contracts under the name Rose Lawson or Mike Lawson or Adam Lawson. He might be using her name, or if she's still alive they might be working together" Derek suggested.  
"Do you think Rose did all this?" Eddie asked.  
"We don't know but at this point we can't rule out anything" Reid explained handing him toward the door.  
"Another question" Derek stopped them again "You told Emily that the man who contacted your daughter had a weird voice. Anything more you can remember about that?"  
"She said it seemed a counterfeited voice, very feminine. That's all I remember"  
"Thank you very much sir"  
Reid and Eddie left the room, Rossi stayed "Emily was right in having doubts about McAdams being our unsub. He's probably the executor, but Rose is the head of everything"  
"So you are saying that this beautiful young woman tried to kill his lover, then staged her death, manipulated another man – her husband- and partnered up with him to kill her ex fling and mutilate people around the country for ten years? How do you turn in such a monster?" Garcia commented horrified.

"I have always been good at getting what I wanted, from men especially. I find them so pathetic, with this idea of being in control, of being the ones who make decisions and provide for you. Instead they are only basic creatures with basic needs, eating, sleeping, emptying their gonads. On Sunday they walk their families to the church, showing off in front of friends and neighbors how such loving caring husbands and fathers they are. But at night in the dim light of their bedrooms, where nobody can see them, they crawl back to their wives blubbering and begging forgiveness for their disgusting filthy lies. There is only one kind of man, and the sooner you learn it the better off you'll be."  
She took a pause and sighed deeply then she went on "And then there are two kinds of women: the wives and the others. A good wife is supposed to cover the cracks, to put up with this animal who broke all his promises, to go on smiling and when faking becomes to painful to look away and add a sip of good old bourbon to her coffee. In order not to face the shame of the public humiliation she has to lose her self-respect and to accept back into her bed, into her womb that filthy animal, night after night, the smell of his whore still on him when he takes her. Then there are the others, they have the benefits of having a man in their bed and his money in their pockets but not the responsibility of covering for his hideous face. They know how powerful a woman can be when she knows the right buttons to push, she can reduce the most respectable and honorable man into a door mat, making him destroy his family, abandon his children, betray his ideals. My mother used to blame the woman who did this to my father, I say she was just jealous for not being as her, I say my father was to blame, but nobody ever did, I say the woman who uncovered the real monster he was, she was a goddess. Since the first time I saw her I knew who I wanted to become, I knew no man would ever humiliate or left me anymore"  
"But the Van Horn came.." Emily suggested.  
Rose gave her a nasty look, hurt by that memory "We were supposed to run away, to be lovers forever. I trusted him, I thought he was different. And all of a sudden he comes out saying that he's not sure anymore, that after all Maureen doesn't deserve this. But he doesn't want to lose me. After the accident when I told him I was leaving he started whining like a child, he promised money, he gave me the fellowship. So lame; I gave up everything for him, my love, my career, my dreams and he thought that some money could fix it.. I didn't want him to get away with it easily. Mike was so easy to set up, he loves me childishly, he cannot stand the idea of me leaving him or even being mad at him. I enjoyed Van Horn's pain during all my engagement with Mike, I also invited him and his wife at the marriage. Then I staged my suicide. When he saw me at school the night we took him he almost fainted, he didn't know whether to cry or to smile. He really didn't understand what was going on until he saw Mike with his instruments. He was crying like a pig, a coward till his last breath" now she was a mask of rage and disgust, her eyes on the hand that would never work at the same anymore.  
"If you hate men so much, why did you kill also women?" asked Emily try to find a way in the maze of her mind.

"It doesn't make any sense Morgan" snapped. "The profile we put up according to her past is the one of a woman who finds gratification from taking control over men, manipulating and using them. In this case she convinced McAdams to cooperate with her in staging her suicide and killing 26 people around the country. But why does she use this particular MO, the collection of the fingers, the rose, the scores?"  
"She's bold" Rossi answered, "she's overconfident in her capacities, she knows she can charm whoever she wants. Maybe in her mind this is some kind of game and she's challenging whoever is smart enough to face and defeat her. That's why the distinctive MO, she wants to be sure that someone sees her."  
"Ok, then" Hotch continued "she hates men. She's been left by her father who preferred a younger woman to her and her mother, so she turns into this kind of woman to be sure she will receive love and her lover turns her down preferring his wife, the model of woman she discarded in first instance. At this point it's something personal, she hates all men because all men are betrayers"  
"So why does she partner up with one of them. And if her motive is the hatred toward men, why the victims belong to both sexes?" objected Morgan.  
"You're right. This woman is a maze and until we don't understand the profile well we won't be able to understand where she's heading" concluded Rossi.  
Eddie had tagged along with the team, everyone agreeing on his presence as a valuable source of information; only now Reid noticed him staring intently at the musical scores attached on the panel and mumbling something, "Eddie, is everything okay?" he addressed the old man.  
"It's Ondine," Eddie concluded his train of thoughts at loud voice "how could I miss it? Emily must have known it, that's why she was putting all the fragments together" he addressed the team members who were all looking at him with confused expressions.  
"Ondi- what?" Rossi asked.  
"The score that Emily put together form the fragments sent to all those people" really he couldn't use the term victims, it would have meant taking the distances from his daughter and considering her as a casualty, "It's the first movement of Gaspar de la Nuit a concert written by Ravel, considered one of the most challenging pieces for a pianist. This first movement is called Ondine, it's a tale about a fairy of the water who seduces men and lure them to follow her and visit her kingdom at the bottom of a lake" the initial enthusiasm for recognizing the musical piece wore out as a new awareness kicked in "but this doesn't mean anything, does it?" asked disheartened to the team.  
"Well actually it might" Reid suggested, "what if killing was not the final purpose but the mean?"

Rose stared at Emily with disappointment, like a teacher with a promising pupil who doesn't get the obvious "It was never about the victims. It was about taking a respectable, good-hearted man who vowed to help people for all his life and turn him into a merciless killer who would do whatever I wanted just because I was asking it. The first time he went on crying and vomiting for two days, and even now he has nightmares all the time" she smiled smugly.  
"You killed all those people to prove you could corrupt a man to the marrow of the bone?" Emily asked, a sudden cloth of nausea coming up to her stomach.  
"Well literally I didn't kill anybody, Mike did all the Kill-Bill job and strictly speaking I am dead, I'm not even prosecutable. But yes, I chose our targets to see how far I could drive him and how long would we be in the game before someone caught us. Useless to say that I didn't envision to carry it on for such a long time."  
Emily was disgusted and upset by the total lack of emotion in Rose recount, but she couldn't help asking the next question and feeling even more uneasy in doing that "Why targeting pianists and why using their fingers?" She knew there was no way to make sense out of the atrocities unsubs committed, but knowing as much as she could about the whys and hows had helped her in the years to feel less useless and dirty after being inside their minds. Being aware of how an unsub mind worked helped her to draw the line between her and them and at the end of the day allowed her to say to herself 'I'm not like them'.  
Rose smiled, again a sparkle of life in her gaze "Ah, that thing. That is a funny story actually"  
Emily couldn't help shivering with disgust at the use of the adjective funny, Rose was describing the atrocities she had been perpetrating for ten years as if she was recounting a trip to the countryside.  
"After all I'm an artist. I wanted to have an original signature, targeting pianists, sending them roses and notes, cutting away their fingers sounded original. As for the piano making, I know it's a bit of a macabre thing but in the beginning it was fun. Then after the first round I was already deadly bored of it, but I thought to stick to it in order to be consistent in my style and to give Mike a final purpose for all this cutting and chopping. But to be honest the music, the piano etcetera is just a framework linked to my personal taste, frankly they could have been plumbers, I don't care." Her voice now was almost childish.  
Emily tried hard to concentrate on the fact that she had to keep her talking and delay as much as she could the end of their conversation, but she was frankly lost while contemplating this monster. Pure evil came with the face of a porcelain doll.  
"You don't get it, do you?" Rose went on "I turned a respectable man turn into a sadistic killer, got 26 people killed around the country and in the process I haven't touched anybody. Even if I got caught today nobody could deny that I am a goddess." She turned her face to the window "It's getting dark and we've talked enough. It's time for stakes! Come on Emily, get up" she announced with a bright smile.  
"So choosing to send fragments of Ondine was casual as well? You don't identify with that fairy, do you?" Emily didn't move a finger and stared at her opponent determined in gaining as much time as she could.  
Rose froze, then she sat down again and settled a pleased smile "As I said it's a shame I have to kill you."  
"The thing is that you're all wrong, and you know it also." Emily continued, Rose suddenly turned at her surprised, not used to be antagonized "You've been unlucky, your father abandoned you for a fairy so you decided to be as well and not to follow your mother's example of faithful wife thinking this would prevent you from pain and loss. But then you fell in love with a man who preferred his faithful wife to you. And there you snapped, because you started thinking it was not a problem with men being mean or with a specific type of woman, the problem was with you, men were leaving you. But the truth is that there are real good men, capable of sincere and affectionate love, who don't need to be lured or charmed to stay with you because they just love you for the way you are. There is no such thing as men and women, wives and others, Rose. There are people who make choices and choose for the good or the evil. You made your choice and ended 28 lives and you're the only one to blame for this"  
"28?"  
"The 26 people you killed, Mike and yourself"  
Rose was uncertain for a second, then she swallowed and regained her composure "So you think that your Prince Charming is different, uh? That he will come to rescue you and he'll take care of you. Even though at the ceremony it wasn't you sitting beside him, it wasn't you gently touching his arm. Nope, you were in a corner, all alone, with an old man who could be your father because you are so scared and insecure that you cannot even get a man for a night. And when Prince Charming ran after you crying for a second chance you gave it to him; you weak, naïve woman. How long would it take before he chooses another bed to jump into? You should be thankful that you won't have the chance to experience this humiliation twice" she got up from her seat "Mike! She's all yours!"

"So what you are saying is that all this time her target was McAdams and not the victims?" Morgan searched for a validation in Reid's eyes.  
"Exactly. McAdams and the category he represents. The good man who is good not because he's brave, but because he's too weak to stand up for the good or the bad, and thus can be corrupted into an evil person by someone who can manipulate him" Reid explained.  
The others looked at each others, the profile actually made sense, but it wasn't easy to accept the idea that 26 innocents died just because a rejected woman wanted to make a statement.  
"Okay. This sheds light on her psychosis, but how does it help to find Emily. The clock is ticking" Rossi pointed out.  
"She's trying to get even with men in general, but in particular with the three men in her life who disappointed her most" Derek reasoned loud voice "her father, Van Horn, McAdams. Garcia search for all the properties rented under one of these three names in the last month, let's say."  
"Got it" she exclaimed after few moments of frantic typing on her keyboard "Rose Van Horn. Could I be more stupid for not trying it before?"  
"Garcia, no time for this. We need an address" Morgan pressed.  
In no time they were heading to the address Garcia gave them. The drive seemed endless to Morgan, his jaw clenched with tension, his mind focused on the necessary hope to save her, to him it was impossible to consider any other outcome.

He tied her to the table, again. The surface hard and cold under her body, the belts hindering any movements, fastened so tight that her limbs soon started going numb.  
"She's going to leave you"  
Then he started cutting her clothes in the areas where he would cut and chop her. His hands intent on her body, his eyes never meeting her gaze.  
"She will leave you alone with your hands covered in blood and nothing of your humanity left"  
He started running the scalpel on her skin, thin blood ripples dripping down to the table, marks for the future deeper incisions drawn as a map on her body.  
"I know you think you don't have anything left, but you still have a choice" she hissed in pain.  
Finally he turned to her, desperation and sorrow in his eyes "I am already a hollow man, I lost my humanity, I sold my soul to the devil. I know she's evil, but at night when we are alone after I took another life for her, she reveals to me a part that I only can see. In those moments I can have back the sweet girl she was once, her smile, the glow in her eyes, the scent of her skin. For few precious instants she's again with me. This is the reason why I do this, why I kill, to resuscitate her once in a while. To preserved that part of her that, even though buried deep down, still lives in her"  
"There's no good part Mike. She is evil to the core, and what you see is what she makes you believe in order to keep you killing for her. Who do you think will be charged for the murders?"  
"I am already a dead man and everything they will do to me will be the right expiation for not being able to save her ten years ago, for not healing her arm, for destroying her future." He knew the procedure already. It was the most excruciating pain every time to take away a life, to tear apart a body, but the thought of having his Rose back afterward was enough to guide him through it. The first hits were the worst, then a shield would kick in, and he wouldn't feel or hear anything anymore. Everything would go black and he would know exactly where to hit, slash after slash. He took the cleaver and raised it over his head, then looked briefly at Emily "I am sorry" he whined pathetically, tears in his eyes.  
Then he went down.  
She saw the blade coming down and afterward everything went black.


	11. On second chances and surprises

They kicked down the door and entered the house silently splitting in different directions. Living room, clear. Kitchen, clear. Master bedroom and bathrooms all clear. Then a second room with some furniture a table, two chairs a sofa and a piano, clear. They looked at each other, discomfort arising, where the hell was she?  
Then they heard a whispering male voice from behind a wall, Rossi and Morgan looked at each other and suddenly headed in the direction of the noise. Only then they noticed the traces on the carpet suggesting that the sofa had been moved against a previously unnoticed door painted with the same color of the wall. They moved the sofa silently, and then burst into the room, McAdams was standing beside a table, cleaver in his hands and a body tied to the table. Derek prayed it was not too late.  
He heard the noise of feet running through the house and soon after the door slamming. He closed his eyes and saw again that smiled he had sacrificed everything for, inhaled deeply, and hit the cleaver toward the body one more time "To you my Rose".  
Emily closed her eyes as soon as the cleaver went down on her. She blamed herself for turning down happiness for such a long time, then she blamed the bad timing of good things in her life, now that she had stopped fighting her feelings it was to late for her. For a moment she had the impression of hearing that husky voice whispering something to her. She wondered why the pain took so much time to kick in, after all a killer was butchering her.  
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. The shots lit the room and went all to the target. McAdams fell down without a sigh. Rossi checked his pulse while Reid called for the paramedics. Derek and Hotch hurried to check Emily and started untying her.  
"Prentiss, you're ok?" Morgan went on asking a few times, god knows how he could keep professional avoiding to hold her in his arms.  
She finally opened her eyes and realized the situation, after a few seconds she found the strength to nod, and mumble few words "Rose Lawson".  
"We know, she is gone but we are looking for her. Now we'll take you to the hospital. Keep strong" Rossi calmed her down.  
Before the paramedics arrived she managed to get Derek closer and whisper him few words "I told her you were different"  
He squeezed her hand and whispered back "We got you, you're safe. You'll be fine"

"I am curious" he teased her smiling and delicately kissing her shoulder.  
"I am sleeping and it's Sunday. Keep it for later okay?" Emily shrugged, making herself closer in his warm embrace and grinning as she felt his smile.  
Few silent seconds. "Did she really call me Prince Charming?" he couldn't resist too long.  
"Derek Morgan, you and your ego. Could you please let me sleep a bit more?"  
He just answered pulling her closer and gently brushing her hair.  
Emily shivered unwillingly thinking back at those hours, at her conversation with Rose "She told me I didn't have to trust you, because you would leave me again" she turned serious.  
"And what did you answered?" his body sudden got tense remembering what they had been through and how close he got to lose her.  
"Rose thought the only way to keep people close was to corrupt and seduce them, I believe that real power is being aware that you can hurt me and choosing not to do that."  
He looked at her dubious.  
"Derek, I know that you could hurt me a lot, and you I know you know it as well. But I also trust you with my life and I know you will actually never let me down"  
Several weeks had passed since her abduction and no traces of Rose had been found. She vanished. Eddie and the families of the victims finally had at least the relief which came with the truth, but deep inside Emily knew she would have never felt closure until she had found her.  
"Emily we can't take back what we've done to ourselves and to each other, I would like to go back and do things differently, but I can't. I have been given a second chance though and there's no day I don't think back at the moment we found you on that table, I swore I would have faced hell to get you back to me safe. And I still would and I.."  
She turned to look him in the eyes and gave him with a long, delicate kiss "I love you Derek Morgan"  
He took several second to process her words "Again?"  
"But let's not make a big deal out of it, okay?" she cradled in his arms tracing few kisses on his collarbone.  
"What do you mean let's not make a big deal out of it? Prentiss.."  
"Sunday morning. 7:30. Sleep." She smiled smugly determined in not waking up completely and letting him cook a little bit more while processing her words, until the doorbell finally crashed her plans and got her out of the bed, leaving alone a speechless and incredulous Derek Morgan.  
When she opened the door nobody was in the aisle, there was just a white box resting on her door mat.  
Derek found her standing in the living room staring at the present, he froze when he saw the gift, a red rose.  
He got closer "We'll found her, I promise" he whispered holding her tight, as if he understood where her thought was going.  
"Or she will find me before" she stated quietly resting her face on his chest, "but until then she's not going to have any power on me" she took his hand and guided him back to the bedroom.


End file.
